You have time to breathe. Honest. It may not feel like it, but you do. So breathe in…and breathe out. Now do that again. Feel your belly button pushing out as you fill your lungs with a bit of calm. Accept that yawn if it asks to have a moment of your time. Now exhale, and feel that extra oxygen in your system. It feels nice, huh?

You are allowed to be comfortable in the winter holiday season. You are allowed to wear comfortable flats to the party. You are allowed to wear a warm top. You are allowed to bring food that you and your kids really like to the family party. Just because it was done one way last year or fifty years ago does not mean that it is the right way to do it this year, for you, for your immediate family, for your finances, for your actual enjoyment of the holidays.

Yes, mom is allowed to actually like the winter holidays! It’s not all running around making sure everyone else is ready, having a good time, and everything is cleaned up after. Make sure you take the time to enjoy a cup of something with your sisters or cousins. Sing along with the radio while running errands. Go see the Christmas lights as a family. Have a cozy game or movie night at home. In fact, the more traditions you make with your immediate family the less time you have available for the annoying (to you) things that every one else will want to schedule for you.

As I write this my husband is out Christmas gift shopping with our younger daughter. They are picking up gifts for her big sister and me. In a bit, the girls will switch and my husband will take our older daughter out on the same errand. It’s daddy/daughter time and it’s getting something useful done. And it’s not on my to do list. I think this needs to be a permanent tradition for them. What do you think?

You are allowed to come up with traditions for your own family. Make it fun. Make it something that everyone looks forward to when December starts.

Here are a few things we do:

The girls each get an advent calendar filled with chocolates to start on December first.

We add The Night Before Christmas and other winter themed stories to the box of bedtime reading books around mid-December.

Close to Christmas we go get hot cocoa at a gas station and drive around looking at the Christmas lights.

I usually make one pass-the-parcel and two pinatas for the big family Christmas Eve party (One for the kids and one for the grown-ups). Most years I don’t do individual gifts for the large gathering. The experience of the parcel and pinatas and what comes out of them is the gifts. (This is how I manage my personal anxiety around making sure everyone has gifts and a good time. They’re together in 3 packages!).

We are implementing a new tradition of spending time on Wizard101 as a family to enjoy the Christmas stuff they have on there.

We just added in daddy taking the girls one at a time to gift shop for their sister and me.

We stay home on Christmas. (Most of this household are introverts and our social batteries are D.O.N.E. by the time Christmas actually gets here.)

We enjoy a couple of epically lazy pajama days after Christmas.

Some people really enjoy going to every event. They love the shopping, the wrapping, the caroling, Elf on a shelf, light up sweaters, and hunting down every winter festival they can find. I am glad they do, because then us quieter introverts aren’t missed as much. (If you are one of these amazing people, please know that we can still be friends. The world does need you and your energy.) Going to see Santa was not high on our priority list this year. Taking our annual picture in front of the Christmas tree beside a favorite coffee shop is.

Holiday traditions don’t have to be crazy-making. You don’t have to be somewhere special every weekend in December. You don’t have to arrange a series of daily craft projects to count down to your holiday. It is allowed to be simpler than we often think we can “get away with”. I’m not preaching here, I am trying to make sure that this holiday stuff (you know, the over the top decorations, gifts, and activities, dumped on us on social media and commercials seemingly from the first fallen leaf of autumn) doesn’t turn me into a big ball of nerves.

A mama who is a big ball of nerves for an entire month is not a mama at her best. And she certainly isn’t enjoying herself. And do you know what her kids see? They see that mama is stressed out by supposedly fun things. What if they internalize that? What if watching us freak out over special days gets into their heads and comes out when they are adults? Do we really want that to be their “normal”, too? I don’t. So, I am learning how to chill out more over the holidays.

If that means that the few gifts that I do give are in gift bags, so be it. If that means that half of our holiday traditions are cozy at home activities, all the better. If that means that my daughters see me taking a couple of deep breaths and settling myself with a mug of tea and some good chocolate before going on to the next Christmas prep task, then good.

Perhaps for them the holidays will be a bit more chill because I showed them it was possible. I really like that idea. Hot chocolates and a couple deep breaths for everyone!

You’ve got this, Mama!